Zoomorphic Copper-Alloy Foot

The two zoomorphic protomes, made of copper alloy, probably brass, and fragmented from their original vessels, e.g., a brazier or tripod lampstand, were used as support fittings. The pair is rare among metalwork from the early Islamic period, and especially among extant Umayyad examples, because metal objects from the earliest days of Islam have mostly been lost or remelted when pieces became broken, styles changed, debts necessitated payment, or destroyed during conflict. Additionally, the two fittings, which feature stylised lions, a theme prominent in the Umayyad decorative repertoire among myriad media, have opened mouths simulating a roar, an exceptional detail more common with grander metal objects, and again, further evidence of their uniqueness. The two fittings were almost certainly produced in the medieval Andalusian workshops of Córdoba or Madinat al-Zahra during the Second Umayyad Caliphate (317–422 AH/929–1031 CE). Their dating is based on the close thematic and stylistic parallels with known Umayyad Andalusian examples in museum collections today, notably the Museo Arqueológico Provincial, Granada, and the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, and on the absence of related examples from other dynastic periods.